


Be My Desire

by LikeSatellites



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Childhood Friends, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pining, friend of the friend with benefits, scorpio line strikes again, top!kihyun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 15:59:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16287557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeSatellites/pseuds/LikeSatellites
Summary: Changkyun is cute. And bright. And supposedly a great lay, according to Hoseok. It makes Kihyun happy. Knowing that Hoseok has someone like that, in whatever context they have one another. Because Kihyun knows Hoseok deserves whatever joy he experiences. More than anyone in the world, Hoseok deserves it.“Do you like him, Ki?”“I told you. No. I don’t like Hoseok,” Kihyun stammers, chugging the ice water. Letting the freezing cold hit his hard palate and shock his brain.“Not Hoseok. Changkyun.”“I can’t.”“I didn’t ask if you could. I asked if you do.”





	Be My Desire

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: hey guys welcome to the i'm still changki-trash show. here's another au no one asked for because i could. i actually really loved writing this, and i haven't done a one-shot in a while. please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed it, and maybe i'll write another little thing like this one! 
> 
> warnings for drinking and mentions of drug use and unsanitary sex locations  
> and some soft angst

There are plenty of reasons why it probably seems odd.

Him and Hoseok being best friends.

But, like most friendships, Kihyun and Hoseok’s began before any discernible evidence as to why they don’t make sense could be found.

Hoseok and Kihyun were born in the same hospital, just months apart. They grew up in the same area. Hoseok’s house sat directly behind Kihyun’s, with a massive leaning pear tree and a long stretch of yard between. Their mothers brought them to the same after-school program for kids with parents who couldn’t be around enough or maybe parents who didn’t quite feel up to being around enough.

Back then, Hoseok and Kihyun were pretty close in size. Small, a bit round in the face, with skin toasted the deep tan that a child can only achieve by being told to ‘please go outside and give us some quiet--Dear God, please, just some quiet.’

There was an old shed, long abandoned and confusingly on the borderline between both houses and thus not touched by either family for repairs. Hoseok and Kihyun would meet there post-homework and read comic books and listen to the new Maroon 5 or TVXQ albums on Kihyun’s father’s work stereo. The floor smelled like mold and rust and whatever liquid sat stagnant in a bucket in one corner of the shed that both boys were too terrified to touch or look too closely at.

As they grew, their friendship never changed. They entered junior high looking like two scrawny bumpkins in knock-off Abercrombie. They wore too much hair gel, the kind that squirted lime green into your palm and made your hair crunch beneath bike helmets. They got excited about comics still. They got excited about Maroon 5 CDs still. They still met between their houses to lay in the grass and leave their mothers to whatever talk show they got together to smoke cigarettes and laugh at, in peace, without kids around.

In high school, Hoseok looked more like an aspiring MySpace model. He wore real Abercrombie. He got contacts. Kihyun started caring more about his studies. He didn’t wash his face enough, but nothing changed. Hoseok sometimes sat at a different lunch table, with the kids from his rugby team. Kihyun sometimes sat with the drama kids--the ones who kept begging him to audition for the Spring play, begging him to be Tony in _West Side Story_ \--but Kihyun never really stepped out into anything.

It shocked everyone who didn’t really know them that Hoseok and Kihyun ended up enrolling at the same university. Just a small liberal arts school. One that recruited Hoseok for wrestling, now that he had filled out like someone had stuck the nozzle of an air hose under his skin and pumped. One that recruited Kihyun for a paper he once wrote about the societal implications of gendering medical professions.

And no one understood Hoseok like Kihyun. Hoseok was outwardly the athletic, smiley guy who went out of his way to fist bump everyone who greeted him, and who was kind to everyone and everything.

Only Kihyun knew that Hoseok owned every Mike Grell _Green Arrow_ comic, wrapped in protective plastic and kept in a temperature-controlled safe. Only Kihyun knew that Hoseok ate cup ramen every night because their moms would rather go play slots at the nearby casino than make dinner. Only Kihyun knew that Hoseok once had a girlfriend who, six months into their relationship said _I need to tell you something, please don’t hate me_. That person then became Hoseok’s boyfriend of another six months before he left for New York City to become a model.

So, sure, maybe to everyone else, Kihyun and Hoseok seem like a strange set of figures. Hoseok being a few inches taller, a good few inches broader, and a good six levels more likeable than Kihyun. Kihyun was the small guy who tried too hard at school, looked more than a little feminine when he put effort into his looks, and who berated people pretty abrasively if he saw them toss recyclables into the garbage bin. But Kihyun didn’t know any other reality than the one where he and Hoseok were best friends.

Now it’s senior year, and Hoseok and Kihyun live in an apartment off campus. An apartment with mismatched IKEA furniture, shoddily built by Kihyun himself, who claimed to be much handier than he was in reality. They have separate bedrooms across the apartment, with a living room and kitchen between them. Their kitchen is mostly a large refrigerator (though Hoseok insists on ramen most nights, out of habit and personal preference for ramen above all else), a deep farmhouse sink, and a few wood cabinets. They set up a little round table in the open space, with only two chairs.

Their living room consists of an old boxy television set, a desk where Hoseok and Kihyun sit on opposite sides with their laptops to do work (and make faces at one another throughout, when things are too quiet for too long), and a grey suede two-seater couch ( _a loveseat_ , their friend Minhyuk likes to declare).

But, no, Kihyun and Hoseok have never been...more than friends. If anything, they were like brothers. They were the family that never seemed to be very present when they were growing up. And despite both being...queer in their own sense of the word, Hoseok and Kihyun had never been attracted to one another. There’s something about having known someone when they were too young to understand they’d pissed themselves on the ferris wheel until the little car stalled at the top and smelled terribly rancid that makes one pretty reluctant to sexualize them.

In fact, Kihyun and Hoseok have never even liked the same people. Back when Kihyun crushed on a short grumpy little gremlin of a music theory kid named Yoongi, Hoseok had crushed on the freshman in his dance elective, Soonyoung, with the crinkly eye smile and the bleached blonde hair and the radiant positivity.

And Kihyun and Hoseok have brought people back to the shared apartment before. They’re never weird about it. Again, something about knowing someone when he got his first public boner and needed help hiding behind your marching band sweatshirt until it died down...makes you pretty comfortable around him. Usually they’ll text one another a warning if someone is coming back, just in case the other would rather find a different place to crash than hear whatever their thin townhouse apartment walls would allow through.

So it’s fine when senior year arrives and their second weekend on campus culminates in Hoseok texting:

{Big Beef 10:15 pm}: Changkyun is coming over

Kihyun learned the other morning, over a cup of instant coffee, that Changkyun is the sophomore that Hoseok met in his psychology lecture that approached him at a wrestling team party and asked if Hoseok would ‘ _take him to poundtown.’_

Kihyun had nearly snorted near-boiling coffee up into his sinuses. “To which you replied...what?”

Hoseok had shrugged, pouring himself a third bowl of Raisin Bran. Milk first. Like the heathen he is. “I said sure.”

So, whatever. Fine. Hoseok has never had the best taste in romantic or sexual partners. Kihyun can’t judge. He once fucked a guy on the ultimate frisbee team whose prelude their encounter was the exclamation, _prepare for the best sex of your life_. (Kihyun snuck out five minutes in, having counted ceiling tiles during the worst head he’s ever had the misfortune of remembering, after pretending he had to piss). It’s what he deserved for having decided to put the dick of someone who thinks catching a frisbee is a sport—and not just a task for an ambitious dog—anywhere near his body.

Hoseok claims Changkyun is a “good time,” and Kihyun has never been able to deny Hoseok whatever entertainment he’s craved. Even when he was super into vampire anime.

{Hamshark 10:16 pm}: fine.

{Hamshark 10:16 pm}: NO MORNING SEX THO

{Hamshark 10:16 pm}: i’ll be home promptly at 9 and i’ll be inspecting for

{Hamshark 10:17 pm}: /messes/

{Big Beef 10:17 pm}: fun-killer. Changkyun is pouting. He says you’re not his real dad.

{Hamshark 10:18 pm}: … 9 am sharp, hoseok

{Big Beef 10:19 pm}: ::eggplant emoji:: ::peach emoji:: ::sweat droplets emoji::

{Hamshark 10:20 pm}: 9 AM!!!!!

Minhyuk and Jooheon are used to Kihyun occasionally crashing at their place. Jooheon answers the door in thick flannel pajamas and Black Panther slippers. Kihyun half-heartedly flashes the Wakanda Forever salute. Jooheon does it back and steps back from the door.

“Who is it this time?”

“Some kid named Changkyun from Hoseok’s psych class. He seems...interesting,” Kihyun replies, shucking off his sneakers and stepping into the guest slippers they leave by the door.

“Oh shit,” Jooheon says, brushing his bright orange hair back from his eyes. It’s still damp from the shower. “I think I know him. He’s in a bunch of my gen ed classes. I think he’s a biomed engineering student.”

Kihyun scoffs. “Really? He had Hoseok text me _you’re not my real dad_. He’s biomedical engineering?”

Minhyuk steps out of the kitchen with a mug of tea. He and Jooheon have matching pajamas on, and both their heads are damp. Kihyun sighs. Gross domestic perverts.

“Hoseok’s going to poundtown with an engineer?”

“Biomedical.”

“Can people tell me when _poundtown_ became an expression we used?” Kihyun whines, flopping face first onto their huge sectional sofa

“Why are you so grumpy? I’m sure you could find a nice engineering student to take to poundtown too, Ki,” Minhyuk says, perching himself on the arm of the couch and petting a few strands of Kihyun’s dark hair individually. Like a pervert. “You know I loathe to compliment you, but your looks have really improved recently.”

“Every time I go to take someone home, they try to like...just lube me right up.”

“Lube is important, Kihyun, I’m appalled,” Minhyuk replies, tugging at Kihyun’s scalp.

“The lube isn’t the problem, Minhyuk,” Kihyun huffs.

“He’s implying he’s not a bottom, Minnie,” Jooheon whispers, as if Kihyun weren’t the only other person in the room.

“Oh, shit. You’re so smart, baby,” Minhyuk coos. “Well, damn, Ki, why don’t you just tell them before you get home?”

“Why should I have to? What does a guy have to do to look like a top in this world?”

“Have you tried a cool, trendy leather jacket?”

“Ohh, leather jacket could work,” Jooheon insists, patting Kihyun’s ankle from where he’s sat on the other armrest.

“Do I have to dress like a television werewolf to be considered a dom?”

“Maybe you just need to find someone super subby. Like the subbiest sub in the world.”

“I don’t like them _super_ subby--”

“Bummer. You’re missing out, eh, baby?” Minhyuk interrupts, cheersing Jooheon with his mug of tea.

Kihyun wishes he didn’t fear death so much, so he could smother himself into the fine leather of this expensive sectional sofa that Minhyuk does not deserve but Jooheon does.

“I like…”

“Brats?”

Kihyun sighs. Turns his face so he’s facing the television, cheek against the soft brown leather. “Don’t pity me. I already pity myself.”

“I’m sure he’s out there, hm?” Minhyuk says, gingerly stroking Kihyun’s head again with just the tips of his fingers. Kihyun hates that he actually finds a bit of comfort in it.

 

Changkyun comes to the apartment a few nights over the next three weeks. Kihyun never sees a trace of him in the apartment, but Hoseok seems to be almost glowing.

“I tell you,” Hoseok says, avalanching Frosted Flakes directly from the box into his fuckin gullet, “having casual sex like this is life-changing. Changkyun is fun and weird and kinky, and we can just chill and play Tsum Tsum in bed after without any awkwardness.”

“Livin’ the dream.”

Kihyun grabs an entire box of S’Mores Pop Tarts and shoves them into his backpack. “Jooheon and Minhyuk don’t have a printer at their place, and I don’t wanna trek to the library at 7 am tomorrow, so I’ll be back early tomorrow. Just let Changkyun know, in case he prefers to walk around dicks-out or whatever.”

Hoseok starts giggling, sugar-coated flakes spitting from his lips as he doubles over. “He only has _one_ dick, Kihyun.”

“I--that’s what you took from that, huh?”

Hoseok finishes chewing. Swallows. Grins his blindingly friendly smile. “I’ll warn him to put his dick away before you get back. Scouts honor.”

 

It’s around 8:05 when Kihyun kicks off his shoes at his own front door, hanging his backpack from the hooks he insisted they invest in to keep the entryway clean. And when Kihyun looks up, there’s someone at Hoseok’s side of the desk, small bookmark-sized lamp clipped onto a thick open textbook.

“Uh, hi?”

The guy looks up, and Kihyun notes he’s shirtless, with the fleece blanket they usually keep draped over the back of the couch instead draped over his lap. He appears to be pretty much fuckin’ naked. Bare ass on Hoseok’s desk chair.

“Oh. Is it already that late?” Changkyun presses the screen of his phone until it dimly lights up. “Fuck. I’ve been sitting here since 5.”

“Can’t sleep?” Kihyun asks, weaving around to plug his laptop into the printer sat on the edge of desk.

“Nah. Just have an exam I gotta cram for,” Changkyun says, capping his highlighter.

Kihyun flips the actual desk lamp on. “Today?”

Changkyun caps his highlighter and sets it down between the pages of his textbook. “Next week.”

“And you’re...cramming now,” Kihyun repeats incredulously, eyes tracing the line of bruises down the kid’s jugular to his clavicles. “Post-coitally. Naked. In our apartment. At 5 am.”

“My dad’s a military scientist. Builds weapons and shit,” Changkyun says, as if that explains everything. “It’s...a lot of pressure to live up to.”

“But you don’t want to build...weapons and shit, right?”

Somehow Kihyun can’t see it. Changkyun’s face is young, dimpled with old acne scars, and he has one of those Western noses that curves out at the bridge. He’s tan like he doesn’t care for sun cream. He just looks soft.

“No,” Changkyun says, almost in a giggle behind his hand. It shifts into a yawn, and he lays his cheek down onto his open textbook, squishing the skin into a little fold that creases at his eye. “I’m thinking more...prosthetics. I dunno.”

“Are you hungry?” Kihyun asks, out of the blue, when it seems like Changkyun’s breathing is starting to deepen, even out into sleep.

Changkyun turns his head so just his chin rests in the crack between pages, and he blinks up at Kihyun. “I’m always hungry. And I did just get dicked pretty hard.”

“Right,” Kihyun replies. “Allergies?”

“I’m not great with dairy,” Changkyun says, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms.

“No one is. Dairy is disgusting. Why are we drinking the breast milk of another species anyhow?”

Changkyun stands, making sure to grab the fleece blanket and tie it around his waist like a weird little pale blue skirt. “It’s like that scene in, um, the new Star Wars, you know? Where Luke milks that freaky alien thing and drinks it right there in front of Rey. That’s like...that’s milk.”

Kihyun is leaning into the fridge, looking for eggs, and he bursts into quiet laughter. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly it.”

When he turns back around, Changkyun is sitting at the kitchen table in Hoseok’s chair with his textbook. His hair is wild at the back like it had been tugged a lot and then slept on. There are lines smudged under his eyes from what seemingly must’ve been some black eyeliner from the night before.

Every couple moments, Kihyun swears he can feel Changkyun’s eyes on him as he cracks the eggs into a bowl, whisks them with a touch of soy milk, and tosses the mix into a hot pan.

“No salt?”

Kihyun watches the eggs bubbling up in the pan and reduces the heat. “Salt right at the end. It won’t cook right otherwise.”

“Huh.”

And then quiet again. Quiet, with the soft trickle of salt into Kihyun’s cupped palm and then carefully measured in pinches into the pan. Quiet, with the gentle scrape of his wooden spoon turning the eggs until they’re just barely set. He divvies the steaming eggs out onto two plates.

“Hoseok’s never up this early,” Kihyun says, sitting in his own chair across the little round black table.

“Yeah he said to just make myself at home until he gets up, but I have class at 9:30 anyhow,” Changkyun says, forking hot eggs right into his open mouth. Kihyun watches, appalled, as he whines high and shrill in the back of his throat, parts his lips and fans air into his mouth, onto his burnt tongue.

“You sure you’re biomed engineering?”

“My friends like to say I’m booksmart, lifedumb,” Changkyun replies, eventually, when he’s stopped fanning his stuck-out tongue. (Kihyun notes, to his own dismay, that Changkyun has an obscenely large tongue. One of those tongues that can probably touch the tip of his nose easily.)

“Lifedumb,” Kihyun repeats, stirring his own eggs around until they cool. “So...I mean. You and Hoseok are…”

“Strictly platonic.” Changkyun waves a dismissive hand in the air between them.

“Platonically fucking a lot,” Kihyun adds, eyeing the clock. He has to leave soon. For some reason he’s reluctant to say so. He convinces himself it’s curiosity. Meeting your best friend of twenty-one years’ casual fuckbuddy over eggs at 8:30 am? Riveting.

“We have the same priorities there. We aren’t looking for anything serious. School is enough. It’s just nice to have somewhere to let off steam. I’m not athletic, and I tried to get into running once; life-ruining, that hobby. Everyone who claims to love running is in on some grand government conspiracy.”

Kihyun raises his fork. “Here, here! I remember when Hoseok did track. I mean, he mostly did javelin and shot put--”

“Typical beef.”

“Exactly. But he’d wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to go out running in the neighborhood. I’d be getting ready in the morning...Well, I’d be throwing on a sweatshirt in the morning, and I’d look out the window, and he’d just be. Running.”

“A fool,” Changkyun replies with a sad sigh. “Brainwashed fool.”

They finish their eggs, and Kihyun goes to grab their plates when Changkyun reaches for them instead.

“Don’t you have class now? Your schedule is taped beside the desk. I promise I’m not stalking you.”

“Oh,” Kihyun says dumbly, peeking at the clock again. “Yeah, shit. I have to go. Just leave them in the sink, and I’ll do them when I get back.”

Changkyun shakes his head, grabbing the bowls in one hand, the other clutching at the blanket around his waist to keep it up. Kihyun follows the line of his back, sloping gently out beneath the folds of the blanket. His skin is so smooth and tan and soft. A drastic contrast to the way Hoseok’s muscles press up hard against his pale skin in ridges and bumps.

“I got it,” he says. “My breakfast would’ve been a five hour energy shot and one of those double chocolate muffins from the library cafe otherwise.”

“That’s…”

“Horrifying? Yeah, I know. Medically understanding what five hour energy does to your body and still drinking it anyhow? That’s pure desperation, friend.”

Kihyun nods slowly. He doesn’t remember the last time he talked to someone new like this. In a way that isn’t _can I borrow your notes?_ Or _Is it supposed to rain?_

“Don’t forget your paper in the printer,” Changkyun adds, as Kihyun walks out of the kitchen and back into the living room to gather his things for class.

Kihyun hums in reply, quickly stapling the pages together and shoving them into his folder. As he steps out onto the porch of the townhouse, Kihyun wonders if he dreamt the entire conversation. It felt almost like existing in a parallel universe. One where conversing with someone who isn’t Hoseok is inexplicably easy and oddly comfortable.

Changkyun is cute. And bright. And supposedly a great lay, according to Hoseok. It makes Kihyun happy. Knowing that Hoseok has someone like that, in whatever context they have one another. Because Kihyun knows Hoseok deserves whatever joy he experiences. More than anyone in the world, Hoseok deserves it.

 

It keeps happening.

Kihyun gets back in the early morning before Hoseok is awake, and Changkyun is there, waiting in the kitchen for Kihyun to cook him breakfast. Kihyun learns that Changkyun also pours his cereal milk-first like Hoseok. Like a heathen. He learns that Changkyun lived in Korea for a while, when his dad was stationed there. He can speak Korean and English fluently, and he even knows a little Hebrew from when his family was stationed in Israel.

_Just the basics. You know. Shalom. Ani Changkyun._

Kihyun learns that Changkyun really loves giving head because sometimes his throat is so wrecked in the morning that when he opens his mouth to say _welcome home, Ki_ , it comes out like a low growl.

Kihyun learns that Changkyun came out to his parents in middle school. When they were living in Boston, and he was one of only a handful of Asian kids in his entire school. He was in the car with his mom. He asked her _Eomma, what if what makes me happy...isn’t girls_ ? And they were in the car, so he felt safe. He felt like. _Well she can’t kick me out while driving. And she can’t even really look at me_ . And she didn’t kick him out. She just said _As long as you’re a good student. A good person, Changkyunnie_.

Kihyun tells Changkyun that he was also in the car when he came out. He told his mom this elaborate story about Albatross birds. How sometimes two females will raise a nest together. And, you know, from the outside no one can tell. Unless you study birds, or whatever. No one can tell. They’re just a family like all the other Albatross families. It’s normal. And his mom pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot and said _you’re lucky your father isn’t around._ But she got over it, Kihyun asserts. Not that they talk very much.

Changkyun asks for the name of the publication where he read about the Albatross nests. They meet up again a few days later in that same liminal space, early morning light coming through the sheer cream curtains in the kitchen, and Changkyun is so excited when Kihyun sits down. Says he read all the articles about the Albatross. Says he wants to know Kihyun’s opinion on the idea of assigning animals a sexuality.

 _One of the articles called them lesbian birds._ _Isn’t that bizarre? Why do we feel the need to do that?_

Kihyun laughs. Kihyun laughs a lot around Changkyun. He’s free when he speaks. Doesn’t hold anything back. Kihyun tells Changkyun that he hasn’t gotten laid in a couple months.

 _Of your own volition? C’mon, Ki. You’re pretty sexy, you know? You have this, hmm...You kinda look like a clam? No...Like a shark. But also a clam? I mean this to be a compliment, I swear_.

Kihyun flushes, heat striking up in his chest like carbon steel striking flint, sparks filling him up until he’s bent over the table laughing.

And Kihyun knows. If this were Minhyuk, he’d be slapping his stupid face and shrieking in outrage at being compared to a sexy sea creature. But this is Changkyun, and he’s sincere when he says absolutely everything.

Like _Hoseok’s dick is the magic kingdom of dicks._

Like _I wish I could top just so I could know what it feels like to stick my dick in. Just that first moment. But the idea of topping has no appeal to me otherwise_.

Kihyun finds himself blurting _I’m a top. I mean. I don’t bottom. I can’t...unclench. Don’t try to put your dick anywhere near my butthole_.

Changkyun clinks his fork against Kihyun’s as they eat toasted eggo waffles. _Don’t let anyone shame you for having a preference_.

 

Changkyun comes over late one night, and Kihyun misses Hoseok’s text. For the first time, Kihyun can hear them.

Changkyun is loud. Because of course Changkyun is loud. Changkyun doesn’t reserve any part of himself. He doesn’t see any shame in it.

Shamelessly, he cries out at 1am in Kihyun’s apartment. He whines. He throatily begs to cum. Not once. Not twice. Three times.

Kihyun has read the same paragraph in this criminology book over and over, and every sentence sounds like _Hoseok, god, yes, please don’t stop--_

Kihyun stares unblinkingly at his door. He wills himself into another dimension. He wills himself momentarily deaf.

And not because it horrifies him. Not because Changkyun has a weird sex voice or anything like that.

Because Kihyun is hard. Kihyun is rock solid. Changkyun, the kid who keeps him company in those quiet hazy morning hours before Hoseok exists to the universe--Changkyun, the kid who claims to get tipsy from Kombucha--Changkyun, the kid who once called himself Hoseok’s grade A cocksleeve.

Kihyun’s gut churns like over-whipped cream. His insides are a disgraceful form of infant butter. Unsalted, flavorless pseudo-butter. His desire is warm liquidy pale yellow in his gut. His body is the runny yolk of an accidentally cracked egg, spilling clumsily onto the styrofoam ridges between eggshells.

It’s awkward and clumsy the way Kihyun presses his palm against his cock through his boxer shorts, as he leans back against his headboard. As he thinks about the way Changkyun once admitted he tried to call Hoseok _Daddy_ and Hoseok laughed at him. As he thinks about the way Changkyun once said, through a mouthful of toast with grape jelly, that he has this fantasy, _don’t laugh at me please_ , where he’s just bent over a sturdy kitchen island with his pants pulled to his ankles and fucked right there, just like that. As he thinks about the way Changkyun once looked up at Kihyun at the breakfast table, and there was cum crusted in Changkyun’s eyelash, and he laughed it off saying _Hoseok has terrible aim_.

As he thinks about all these moments, scratched out and rewritten with Kihyun’s name.

Down the hall, Changkyun has just cum for what must be an inhuman fourth time, and Kihyun wants to see his face. Kihyun wants to know if it looks anything like the face he makes when he watches a video of a Mariachi Band playing to a Beluga whale at the aquarium, its smooth white head bobbing to the trumpet, its soft nose pressed to the glass like _I want to know_.

Kihyun wants to know if Changkyun’s brows pull together the way they do when he’s flipping back and forth between pages of his neurology textbook, huffing under his breath when something is just out of his mental grasp. If, when Kihyun’s hand wraps around his cock, Changkyun looks anything like the frustrated Changkyun who couldn’t solve Friday’s NYT crossword because he doesn’t _know anything about baseball_.

Kihyun’s hips kick. His head thunks back against the wall. His eyes screw shut.

Down the hall, Changkyun makes a sound like he’s crying. He yells _fuck you! Cuh--c’mon--please--once more--fuck you!_

Kihyun digs his hand beneath the waistband of his boxers and cums with a soft shudder into his own hand, release slick between his fingers. He lays there, panting and staring sightlessly up at his own ceiling, until his skin feels clammy and disgusting and he has to go wash it off.

He opens the door. It’s 2am. The lights are off in the living room.

In the sliver of light that casts from his room, Kihyun sees Changkyun on his hands and knees on the hardwood floor. He quickly swings his hand behind his back so Changkyun can’t see his shame.

Changkyun looks up, wearing only one of Hoseok’s old rugby t-shirts from high school. Kihyun can see the pale skin of his ass peeking out at the base of his tailbone.

“Why are you on the floor?”

“I dropped a Goldfish,” Changkyun says, sounding breathless.

“I hope you mean the cracker. But also...it’s 2am.”

“Hoseok said, _ouch is that a thumbtack_ , you don’t like messes,” Changkyun replies, looking up at Kihyun from his knees, his eyes bloodshot and hair artfully tousled.

“But why were you eating Goldfish crackers outside my room at 2am?”

Changkyun stands, holding the crushed bits of orange in his open palm. The rugby shirt hangs to the very tops of his thighs. His legs are smooth like he waxes or is just one of those guys who doesn’t grow hair, and tan from the knees down. His thighs are thin but soft, pale because they haven’t seen the sun like his deeply tanned knobby knees.

“I wanted to see if you were up. I got this assignment to watch this weird artsy french film, and it seemed like something you’d like. It’s weird but cool.”

Kihyun clenches his cum-crusty fingers behind his back. Tries not to look at where Hoseok’s t-shirt drops loose over one of Changkyun’s shoulders, baring a sharp, bruised collarbone.

“Why didn’t you ask Hoseok?”

Changkyun sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and thinks. Releases his lip, spit-slick and pink. Then shrugs. “I dunno. Just wanted to ask you instead.”

Kihyun’s heart gives a sharp yank onto every artery and vein splintering out into his body. Everything hurts.

“Yeah. I gotta...piss first.”

It’s 2am now. Kihyun’s hands smell like apples and cinnamon soap because he scrubbed them thoroughly until his knuckles cracked when he dried them. Changkyun is sitting on the couch, but when he’s on it beside Kihyun, Kihyun knows what Minhyuk means about it being a loveseat.

Their thighs are pressed together. Changkyun’s laptop is sitting with one half on Kihyun’s right thigh and one half on Changkyun’s left. Their shoulders brush when Changkyun presses play because apparently he’s left-handed.

Kihyun points it out. “You eat with your right hand,” he says, like a complete lunatic.

Changkyun laughs. “Yeah, my teachers taught me how to use my right hand. Someone told me being left-handed is bad luck, so I asked to learn to use both.”

“Huh,” Kihyun breathes out, as the movie starts. It’s a whole lot of shifting images. A teapot. A girl on a swing. A melting clock. Colors. Spirals.

“Like a bad trip, right?”

Kihyun tips his head to the side. Thinks of the couple times he’s let himself be stoned enough for it to really affect him. “It’s more like...a really vivid trip. Nothing is really all that frightening. It’s just a lot at once.”

“That’s true. It isn’t bad. Just different,” Changkyun says, dropping his head onto Kihyun’s shoulder like it’s nothing. “What meaning am I supposed to take from a girl in Victorian clothing on an old swing, though?”

“I always thought the whole point of art is that you’re not supposed to ask for an answer,” Kihyun replies, and he can smell his own shampoo in Changkyun’s hair. Tea tree. Bright. Minty.

“Aren’t you pre-law? How dare you lecture me on art?” Changkyun huffs, slapping Kihyun’s thigh. He leaves his hand there.

“You’re biomedical engineering! You know less of art than I do!”

Changkyun turns his head to argue. Kihyun turns at the same time.

And there’s a moment. A dreadfully quiet moment, because of course this stupid film is silent. Kihyun’s eyes flicker down to Changkyun’s lips. And Kihyun swears Changkyun mirrors the look. Then their eyes meet again.

Hoseok’s bedroom door swings open down the hall.

Kihyun jumps up from the couch, and Changkyun scrambles to grab his laptop before it topples onto the floor. Hoseok pads out in his slippers, blinking against the light still coming from Kihyun’s bedroom door.

“Whas’goinon?” he slurs amid a yawn.

“I asked Kihyun for homework help, since he was up too,” Changkyun says.

Hoseok looks at Kihyun. Kihyun feels guilt gnawing its little teeth into his breastplate.

“Yeah. Homework help. I have to...leave now,” Kihyun blurts, running into his room to yank on a pair of sweats and his backpack.

“The fuck you going at 3am?” Hoseok croaks, gripping the bathroom door and rubbing at his eyes with his other hand.

“B...ooty call,” Kihyun lies.

Hoseok chokes on a laugh-yawn. “When’d you get one’a those?”

“Just now. Kid from my ethics class. See you,” Kihyun lies again. The lies build up on his tongue until he’s out the front door and can’t see Changkyun’s confused and disappointed face anymore.

 

Kihyun sleeps in one of the private study rooms in the library. Onto the little window in the door, he tapes a hastily scribbled piece of looseleaf with the note _OCCUPIED_.

He wakes up with creases from his wrinkled sleeves pressed into his face from where he’d slept atop his folded arms. It’s Friday, and Kihyun surprisingly doesn’t have class today.

{Scorpi-bro 11:02 am}: can we go out

{Scorpi-ho 11:02 am}: GASP!!!!!!

{Scorpi-ho 11:02 am}: perennial hermit kihyun yoo wants to go OUT???

{Scorpi-bro 11:03 am}: changed my mind bai

{Scorpi-ho 11:03 am}: it’s buy 1 get 1 well drinks at the cockpit tonite

{Scorpi-bro 11:04 am}: fine but first rounds on u

{Scorpi-bro 11:05 am}: jooheon isn’t invited. Bros only event.

{Scorpi-ho 11:05 am}: ur just mad about that time we ditched to fuck in the back alley

{Scorpi-bro 11:06 am}: actually i had forgotten about it but now that youve reminded me

{Scorpi-bro 11:06 am}: first TWO rounds on u ::clinking beer mugs emoji::

Kihyun hides at the library until it’s a reasonable-enough time to head to Jooheon and Minhyuk’s apartment. Since Kihyun refuses to stop back at his place, for pure chicken-shit fear that Changkyun might be there.

Jooheon answers the door in his bathrobe, looking freshly fucked, cheeks flushed pink. “I hear you refused me an invitation tonight.”

“I think you’ll recover,” Kihyun says, stepping in, peeling off his shoes, and walking right into their bedroom.

Minhyuk is standing in front of their shared closet, wearing only a pair of tight leather pants. His hair is wet, slicked back and newly bleached. He looks over at Kihyun, and his eyes nearly bug out of his skull. “I will not enter the Cockpit with you wearing a Debate team hoodie and mismatched gray sweatpants. I hate you.”

“I figured you’d dress me,” Kihyun replies, shrugging his sweatshirt over his head and rifling through Minhyuk’s dresser.

“Why didn’t you go home first? You’re like...three blocks away.”

“Changkyun was over.”

“Uh huh...and? I thought you guys were friends now,” Minhyuk says, tossing Kihyun a pair of ripped black skinny jeans.

Kihyun jumps up and down to ease the tight denim up to his hips. He leaves it unbuttoned to give his stomach moments of freedom before forcing the button closed. “I just wanted to give them some space.”

“What, they fuck all day? I figured Hoseok was a one orgasm and then pass out kinda oaf,” Minhyuk teases, pulling on a low-cut gray t-shirt.

“I’ve definitely heard...several rounds. At least on Changkyun’s end,” Kihyun admits, before realizing it sounds like he purposefully listens in. Like he cups his hand ‘round his ear and presses in close to the door or something.

Minhyuk yanks a loose white button-down over Kihyun’s head, leaving the top two buttons open so it bares the top of his chest. “Ki, you know, aside from the love of my life Jooheon Lee, you’re my best friend, right?”

Kihyun quickly fixes his mussed hair and tucks the front of the shirt into his newly-buttoned jeans. It feels tight. Very tight. Ball-crushingly tight. Perhaps that’s what he deserves at the moment.

“Yeah. I mean. Yeah,” Kihyun replies, as Minhyuk grabs him by the cheeks.

“So if you’re going through something and need to vent,” Minhyuk says slowly, eyes boring into Kihyun’s like he can pry all Kihyun’s secrets out through his pupils, “you know I’m always here to listen. No judgement.”

Kihyun swats Minhyuk’s hands away. “Maybe once you get a few gin and tonics in me, okay?”

Minhyuk pats Kihyun atop the crown of his head. “Sure, sure.” He gets another quick slap to Kihyun’s cheek before Kihyun can catch him. “I love ya, you little repressed rodent.”

Jooheon waves goodbye from the porch of their townhouse, still in his bathrobe like some sleepy housewife.

“I’m gonna wife him,” Minhyuk says, peering back at Jooheon over his shoulder.

“I’m happy for you,” Kihyun replies, gently patting Minhyuk’s bum. His palm meets the leather and makes an unpleasant somewhat clammy sound.

“Yeah yeah. When you ask for that cute bridesmaid’s number at our wedding, I will _deny_ you real quick,” Minhyuk snips.

“We’re going to a bar called the Cockpit. A gay bar. We’re going to a gay bar called the Cockpit so I can forget about a dick, and you threaten me with a woman’s contact info?” Kihyun snips back.

“It’s a metaphor,” Minhyuk says, slinging an arm over Kihyun’s shoulder. “But now that you bring it up. Forget about a dick, you say?”

Kihyun spots the ostentatious neon lights outside the Cockpit. A flashing pilot perched atop a flashing jetplane like an old pin-up. “Drinks first. Then emotional enema.”

“Gross, dude,” Minhyuk laughs, grabbing the heavy door to the bar and holding it open for Kihyun. The inside is supposed to look like the inside of an airplane. To Kihyun it’s always just looked like a poorly-organized bar.

But it’s one of two gay bars in the entire region, so he’ll take it. With its dumb punny cocktail list. And its strange carpet-upholstered reclining airplane seats in the booths.

Hyunwoo is the bartender most weekends, and he waves his dishrag when Minhyuk and Kihyun walk over. “Haven’t seen you two together in ages. Usually this one is here with his little dumpling.”

“Omigod,” Minhyuk squeals, cupping his own cheeks and squishing them, “he _is_ a dumpling.”

Hyunwoo turns to Kihyun instead. “I’m guessing this is a special occasion? G&T?”

Kihyun nods, sliding up onto the tall bar stool. Hyunwoo hands him a clean wet rag. Kihyun wipes down the laquered wood bar surface in front of him. Hyunwoo knows he likes to inspect it himself before putting his arms down. Hyunwoo is good people.

He places the gin and tonic in front of Kihyun and tosses the used rag into a bucket under the bar. “So...what’s the deal?”

“He’s gay,” Minhyuk says, immediately climbing into the seat beside Kihyun and dropping his elbows to the bartop like it isn’t coated in God knows what. Human filth.

Hyunwoo glances around the bar. “Yeah...I. I mean. Yeah?”

Kihyun slaps the back of Minhyuk’s head. “Please get this dufus a cosmopolitan before I drown him in your bathroom sink.”

“Bathroom is under maintenance,” Hyunwoo says, like Kihyun was serious, and this would really put a damper on his plans. “Well.” He leans in conspiratorially. “People were just using it to fuck, so we say it’s under maintenance. If you guys gotta pee, just lemme know. I’ll give you the lock code.”

See. Good people, that Hyunwoo.

Oh. Kihyun looks down. His drink is empty. He slides the glass back to Hyunwoo. “Help,” he says.

Hyunwoo looks over at Minhyuk. “He’s got it bad, huh?”

Minhyuk sighs and twirls the hair that had grown out too long behind his ear. It’s supposed to be a stylish mullet, but Kihyun doesn’t think such a thing is feasible. “Your guess is as good as mine. He’s either in love or got some kind of deadly disease. He won’t tell me until he’s drunk, so you better get on that drink-making, Good Sir.”

Kihyun finishes his second gin and tonic as it hits 11:30pm. The room is filling up now that everyone is done cradling drinks at the bar and instead moved to the rainbow light-up dance floor. “You know Hoseok?”

Hyunwoo and Minhyuk both turn to Kihyun. Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” begins blaring behind them.

“Yeah.”

“You mean our good friend, Hoseok Shin? I think we know him, yes.”

“He’s good. He’s really good, isn’t he?”

“Oh em gee, Kihyun, are you in love with _Hoseok_?” Minhyuk squeaks, leaning in impossibly close to Kihyun’s face.

Kihyun slaps him away again. “No, idiot. I mean, like. Just, like...I dunno. I’ve known him forever. More than forever. I’ve known him since before he existed. That doesn’t make sense.” He shakes his head, feeling the liquor hitting him embarrassingly hard. He hasn’t drank in a long while. Two strong g&ts in and Kihyun can feel his own cheekbones. He can feel his eyelashes.

“Uh huh. And?”

“Hoseok’s never had a good boyfriend. He’s always dated these other jock assholes, you know? But he’s better than that. He’s always been better than everyone. His mom blamed him for his dad leaving, but he still used part of his student loan money to help pay for her mortgage.”

“When do we start talking about the dick you mentioned earlier?” Minhyuk sighs, sipping his third cosmopolitan, this one considerably less red and considerably more...just vodka.

“I gotta. I gotta talk about Hoseok first, okay? I gotta talk about how one time. One time we were nine,” Kihyun says, leaning his cheek onto his palm, elbow on the bartop, like he needs help supporting his own skeleton, “I tried to climb the pear tree. The big pear tree in our backyards. And the branches snapped under me, and I ripped my whole stomach open. I mean you could see flaps of things that should never be seen, really. And neither of our families were home. They weren’t often home. And Hoseok. He _piggybacked_ me around the neighborhood until someone answered the door and called an ambulance for him. I bled all down his back. He was wearing his favorite Jerry Rice jersey, and I got my skin flaps all over it. And he was with me the entire time they sewed my skin flaps closed--”

“Please stop mentioning the flaps, Kihyun.”

“Right. But do you get it? Hoseok is all I’ve ever had. But he’s always had other people too. And now he has someone great.”

“Changkyun, you mean,” Minhyuk says, starting to grin a little.

“Yeah. Changkyun. Changkyun is amazing. He’s gotta be top five percent of his class. He studies at three am for exams that don’t even exist yet. He thinks about things. All the time. Weird things. Cool things. Unique things. He’s kinky and cute and sweet, and he really cares about Hoseok. One time Hoseok left his take-home exam in the living room, and Changkyun took it to his classroom. He didn’t have to do that, you know? They’re just. They’re just dicking.”

“Right. They’re just dicking. So why are you bringing this up?”

“I think Hoseok deserves Changkyun. They deserve each other. They’re two of the...two of the best people I think I could ever know.”

“Has Hoseok told you he wants to date Changkyun?”

Kihyun blinks at Minhyuk. His hair is blinding in the strobe lights. He shakes his head, and the bar sloshes around. “No. Why?”

“Don’t you think maybe you’re projecting onto them a little too hard, Ki?” Minhyuk asks.

Kihyun doesn’t understand. He shakes his head again. Everything tips. Oozes up the sides of his skull inside. Leaves this residue as it drops back down into stillness.

“Whaddyoumean?”

Hyunwoo places a glass of ice water down in front of Kihyun and smiles. “I think he means maybe it isn’t Hoseok who needs Changkyun.”

“But I. They. I can’t?”

“Who says?”

Kihyun tries to think. Who says? Everyone. Logic. His conscience. Changkyun is his best friend’s grade A cocksleeve. His stress relief ball. His good friend. Kihyun can hear them giggling together down the hall. Kihyun can hear them.

“Do you like him, Ki?”

“I told you. No. I don’t like Hoseok,” Kihyun stammers, chugging the ice water. Letting the freezing cold hit his hard palate and shock his brain.

“Not Hoseok. Changkyun.”

“I can’t.”

“I didn’t ask if you could. I asked if you do.”

Kihyun looks down at the ice cubes clinking together at the bottom of the glass. “I almost kissed him. I ran away.”

“He doesn’t like Hoseok, Kihyun,” Hyunwoo says.

“How would you know, huh?” Kihyun protests. He rescinds his earlier statement about Hyunwoo being Good People. Hyunwoo is a Not Good Person.

“Because he’s literally behind you on the dance floor, sandwiched between three other dudes,” Hyunwoo observes, nodding his head.

Kihyun swivels his stool around. His eyes adjust to the insane light flashes both above and under the dance floor. And Hyunwoo is right. Changkyun is there in the middle. There are hands on his waist from both sides, and he’s got his own arms slung around the neck of another boy at his side. He’s drenched in sweat. His hair is dark and flat against his forehead. There’s eyeliner smudged wild and dark beneath and at the sharp corners of his eyes.

“Oh,” Kihyun says dumbly.

The song shifts. It’s something slow. Thick. Some Kehlani song, maybe.

Kihyun can’t stop watching how Changkyun’s hips move. Like he could be matching the beat, but his body comes first. Like he just wants to let himself move. Kihyun wants to move against him. Kihyun wants to move him.

The boy whose neck Changkyun has his arms slung over leans down, lips to Changkyun’s ear. Changkyun lifts up to reply. The guy leans in again.

And then Changkyun’s eyes shift over in Kihyun’s direction. Through the crowd. Through everything. Changkyun, looking like a sexed up sweaty racoon, finds Kihyun’s eyes in all of the chaos and everything. He pushes away from his friends. He marches across the dance floor, hips confident. Body confident.

“Uh oh,” Kihyun says.

“Uh oh indeed,” Minhyuk says, sounding far too excited. “I’ll be over there talking to literally anyone else.”

“Please don’t g--”

He’s gone.

Changkyun strides up. He actually looks a little nervous now, standing right in front of Kihyun. Kihyun notes he’s a little shorter than Changkyun where he’s sat on the barstool. As if he weren’t already at a disadvantage.

“Hi,” Changkyun says.

Kihyun clears his throat. “Hey.”

“Are we okay?”

“What?”

“I dunno. You seemed mad at me or something. I’ve never seen you freak out like that before.”

Kihyun watches Changkyun’s lips move. He tries to blame it on the gay ass lighting.

“No. I mean. Yeah. We’re okay.”

Changkyun nods, sucking on his own bottom lip again. “We’re friends?”

Kihyun tastes his own shame under his tongue. He shoves it back down. “Of course.”

“Do you wanna dance?”

“Do I want to...dance?”

Changkyun shifts from foot to foot. Glances back at the dance floor. Sucks on his lip again. “Yeah. We’re friends. At a gay club. Let’s dance.”

Every cell in Kihyun’s brain is yelling _DO NOT_ but the rhythm of his blood is whispering _friends. At a gay club. It’s fine. Just do it._

Kihyun has danced with Hoseok before, plenty of times. Sometimes Hoseok drunkenly insists on doing the Dirty Dancing lift and Kihyun insists on having several of their other friends spotting him in case he falls.

“Sure. Let’s dance.”

Changkyun grabs his wrist. Everything is slick with sweat and warm, and Kihyun’s cheekbones are tingling in his face from the liquor. He feels like Changkyun’s friends are watching them, but he can only see Changkyun. Everything is smokey and blinking rainbow lights. It’s all a little absurd.

“Kind of like that film,” Kihyun observes.

“What?” Changkyun yells back over the music.

“All the colors and movement and nonsense. Like that movie,” Kihyun says again.

Changkyun looks at him in confusion for a moment before a grin breaks out over his face. “It is,” he replies. “And I figured out what it means.”

He lifts his arms up to the ceiling and starts hopping to the beat.

“What are you doing?”

“Whatever I want!” Changkyun yells, whole body wriggling to the song. Well, slightly off beat. “Do it!”

“But I--”

“DO IT!” Changkyun commands, and Kihyun finds himself unable to say no. He lifts his arms and jumps. He turns in circles. He lets his drunk brain take over.

Changkyun glows. His skin is tan and glistening. Droplets of sweat trail down his throat. Down his jaw. He’s smiling, and everything hurts Kihyun’s eyes.

Changkyun grabs him by the waist and tugs him close. Their hips meet. Kihyun thinks about Changkyun begging to cum, low voice carrying across the apartment. Kihyun thinks about Changkyun crying beneath him, eyeliner smudged, hands gripping the pillow beneath his hips.

“What are you thinking about?” Changkyun shouts over the noise.

“Fucking you,” Kihyun answers, without thinking.

Changkyun stops moving. Kihyun’s heart slams against the inside of his chest cavity and lands with a gross splat down into his gut.

“Fucking me,” Changkyun repeats, threading his thumbs into Kihyun’s belt loops.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have--”

“Does this place have a bathroom?”

Kihyun can’t breathe. He nods.

Changkyun drags him off the dance floor.

“It’s locked. It’s under...it’s locked. Hyunwoo has the code.”

Changkyun keeps dragging him, and Kihyun is terrified and aroused. Changkyun waves Hyunwoo over to their side of the bar. “Bathroom. Bathroom code.”

Hyunwoo looks at Kihyun. He must see something there because he says, “Just press 0 four times. Don’t tell anyone else.”

They’re about to walk away when Hyunwoo adds, “There’s stuff under the sink.”

Changkyun nearly kicks the door down after punching in the 0s. He gets Kihyun up against the door, and Kihyun forgets about how many pairs of hands have touched this door. This floor. Everything. Everything comes down to Changkyun’s hands pressed to Kihyun’s chest, feeling the sweat soaked into the fabric of his shirt.

Changkyun steps back. Drops into a squat to peer into the cabinet under the sink.

“We can’t. You...I mean. Clean?”

Changkyun laughs, grabbing a fistful of condoms and lube packets from the basket under the sink. “You think I go out without preparing for the best case scenario?”

“But aren’t you and Hoseok?”

Changkyun tugs his shirt over his head and blinks. His hair is ruffled up at the back. “Me and Hoseok, what?”

Kihyun shakes his head. Nothing feels real. He keeps looking at Changkyun’s skin. It’s the first time he’s seen it without the context of Hoseok. Without knowing Hoseok had touched him just before. This is for Kihyun. He’s baring himself for Kihyun.

“Touch me, Kihyun,” Changkyun says, almost breathless as he grabs Kihyun’s wrists and pulls them to his waist. Kihyun traces the slick skin beneath his palms. Feels Changkyun’s breath as his ribs rise up to meet Kihyun’s fingertips. “Do you want to fuck me?”

Kihyun looks at Changkyun’s lips. At Changkyun’s eyes, where they meet his, dark and charcoal-rimmed and needy. “God yeah. Of course I do.”

“Please,” Changkyun begs, tugging Kihyun’s shirt out from where it’s tucked into his jeans. He pulls and pulls until Kihyun lifts his arms and lets him yank it off. Changkyun presses their bodies together and lights go off behind Kihyun’s eyelids. Everything is skin. “Kiss me. Fuck me. Please.”

“Yeah,” Kihyun murmurs, and he doesn’t need to bend down to lift up at all to grab Changkyun by the hair at the back of his head to tug him in close. To brush their lips together once, twice, three times before they find a rhythm and Changkyun parts his lips in a gasp.

Changkyun pulls back, grimacing for a second. “You taste like gin. Are you a grandpa? Who drinks gin?”

Kihyun grabs Changkyun’s hair again. Changkyun tips his head into Kihyun’s grip and smirks, even as his breath comes quicker. “You like teasing, don’t you?”

The corner of Changkyun’s mouth quirks up. “You do too.”

Kihyun regrets telling Changkyun all his sexual secrets over bowls of stale cereal and coconut milk. “And you like this, too.” He gives Changkyun’s hair another yank, rough on his scalp. Changkyun gasps again, chest heaving, and he grinds their hips together so Kihyun can feel how hard he is.

“Fuck me how you want it, Kihyun,” Changkyun says, unbuttoning Kihyun’s jeans and slipping his hand under the tight waistband so he can tug the denim down. It’s difficult, what with the tightness and the sweat. They laugh, still somehow both hard against one another’s thighs.

“What about what you like?” Kihyun asks, plucking his jeans up and folding them on top of the sink counter.

“It’s the same,” Changkyun says, cupping Kihyun through his boxers and pressing their lips back together. He licks against Kihyun’s top lip. He nips at it. He ruts against Kihyun’s thigh as he works his hand inside Kihyun’s boxers and wraps his hot skin around Kihyun. “I mean opposite. The same. Just fuck me.”

“Put your hands on the door,” Kihyun says, figuring it’s the cleanest surface, though he doesn’t think Changkyun cares about that sort of thing. Changkyun strips the rest of his clothes off and slaps his palms against the door, arching his back and presenting himself to Kihyun easily. Kihyun lightly slaps the skin of Changkyun’s ass. Watches it shake a little. Bloom pink for a second beneath the impact.

“Faster,” Changkyun urges. “My friends are going to look for me soon. I didn’t have time to text them, and one of them has my phone.”

Kihyun rips the lube packet open with his teeth. The first one only rips half a centimeter and Kihyun can’t get anything out. He throws it into the sink and grabs the next one. Changkyun giggles a little. Kihyun hates how the sound makes his dick twitch.

He nips at the juncture of Changkyun’s shoulder as he folds himself over Changkyun’s back and rubs his slick fingers over Changkyun’s hole. “You’re sure this is okay?”

Changkyun laughs again and presses back against Kihyun’s hand. “You want me to beg?”

“I know you like begging,” Kihyun answers, working Changkyun open slowly, even though his body is desperate to just fuck right into him.

“Yes, Sir,” Changkyun says, turning to wink over his shoulder as he fucks himself down onto Kihyun’s fingers. “But seriously. My friends. Please get in me. I turn back into a pumpkin at midnight.”

“Well I’d hate to be found fucking a pumpkin,” Kihyun replies, ripping the condom wrapper and spitting the plastic out of his mouth. He rolls it down over his cock, checks the tip safely, and then grabs Changkyun’s soft hips in his hands and fucks into him in one swift motion.

Changkyun’s hands form fists against the door as he cries out. “God, _yes_. I knew you’d feel amazing.”

Kihyun wants to see Changkyun’s face, but instead he focuses on the way Changkyun’s body sucks him in, wraps him up, all tight around him.

“C’mon, Ki. Use those snake hips no one lets you use, hm?” Changkyun teases, voice breaking off into a moan and a hum as Kihyun snaps his hips harder. “How can no one see how hot you are like this, Kihyun?”

“Maybe I just need,” Kihyun says, gasping and kissing at Changkyun’s back as he fucks into him rougher, “a cool, trendy leather jacket.”

Changkyun laughs, forehead dropping forward against the door. “Every Daddy needs a trendy leather jacket.”

“I’ll invest,” Kihyun says, shifting his stance so he can change his thrusts.

Changkyun cries out, punching the door. “Y _es. Fuck! There._ I _knew_ you’d be good at this. I knew you’d--” he breaks off into a sob and then falls silent as Kihyun thrusts in again and again, trying to keep his hips in just the right place. It’s been too long for Kihyun to quite make it what Changkyun deserves, so Kihyun reaches around and fists Changkyun’s cock hard. Changkyun keeps making those soft sobbing noises that break off into groans, and his hips shudder, cock pushing in and out of Kihyun’s tight fist.

“Come for me, Changkyun,” Kihyun gasps, snapping his hips erratically.

“I want--I want _more_. I wish we--I wish--” Changkyun says, whole body shaking so hard that Kihyun can feel his thigh muscles twitching as he cums. He spills hot and wet over Kihyun’s fingers, and Kihyun keeps his hand still, letting Changkyun ride through his oversensitivity and even a little after. He whimpers, shaking all over, and Kihyun can’t hold it back any longer.

Changkyun gasps out his name, and Kihyun’s hips give one last, short kick before he spills into the condom. They stand there, still locked together, for a minute, before Kihyun pulls slowly out to tie off the condom and toss it into the bathroom bin.

“Kihyun,” Changkyun murmurs, turning around as Kihyun hands Changkyun his clothing.

“I know. Your friends. It’s cool.” Kihyun hops back into his jeans. He watches as Changkyun grips his shirt in his hands and doesn’t move. “Better hurry, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I just. Kihyun. The movie. There’s this code, right? This unbreakable code. A...a method.”

There’s a knock on the door. “Hey, it’s Hyunwoo. My shift is ending, and my boss is gonna want the bathroom clear.”

Changkyun tugs his clothes on hastily, all while still muttering. “It’s like! The code. The... Are you listening?”

Kihyun keeps watching Changkyun’s lips. His eyes drop to the red purple mottled mark he left on the back of Changkyun’s neck. His gut gives a sharp tug.

Code, huh. Like the one he broke when he stuck his dick into his best friend’s fuckbuddy (and perhaps perfect soulmate)?

“You should go, right? We should go,” Kihyun says, liquor rising back up in his throat and leaving a burn like napalm all up and down his esophagus.

“Wait. But, I was explaining. I--can we talk? Soon?” Changkyun swats Kihyun’s hand away from the doorknob, even as Hyunwoo knocks again.

“Yeah. Sure. We can talk soon.”

Changkyun turns the knob, and Kihyun’s walls crash down hard. Everything shutters back into place. Everything drops down into his stomach acids and _burns_. Kihyun pushes through the open door, past Hyunwoo, and back up to the bar.

Behind him, Changkyun is calling out his name, but Kihyun hears his friends, too. Forming a circle around him. Kihyun takes the opportunity to interrupt Minhyuk where he’s talking to two straight girls at the bar. Sounds like he’s ranting about the invasion of queer spaces again. The girls seem to find it cute. Blond twink with a weird almost mullet lecturing them while drunk.

Kihyun sighs and grabs Minhyuk by the shoulder. “We’re leaving.”

“You smell like free bathroom lube,” Minhyuk says, sounding thrilled.

“Which is why we’re leaving.”

“Are you about to have one of those weird closed-off self-loathing slumps? Because I am not going to--”

“Please,” Kihyun pleads, chin wrinkling as he fights off tears. “I need to go.”

Minhyuk sighs. He scribbles down a website on a napkin for the girls. “So you can educate yourselves,” he says, before leading Kihyun back outside and back to his apartment.

 

Kihyun makes it three days at Jooheon and Minhyuk’s apartment, unshowered, unmoving, ignoring all contact with the outside world. His head rings with the words _there’s an unbreakable code_.

On the fourth day, Hoseok shows up.

“I gave you space,” he says, but he sounds upset. “Now knock it off.”

“Don’t wanna,” Kihyun says, facing the wall in the guest room, curled up tight like an armadillo.

“You smell rancid.”

“Another reason for you to go.”

“I will throw you over my shoulder, Kihyun Yoo. You know I will. I will carry you like a sack of christmas toys over my shoulder. I will do it across campus.”

Kihyun groans and shifts into a sitting position. The air movement brings with it the scent of his own body. Hoseok is right. He smells like a bad trash fire.

“Fine. I’ll come home. There’s...no one else at the apartment, right?”

“I haven’t seen Changkyun in days, no. So you’ll come with me willingly?”

Kihyun swings his legs over to dangle from the bed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming willingly.”

Hoseok takes his hand. He walks him all the way home, all four blocks, as if he’s about to bolt away. A bad dog off the leash.

Inside the apartment, Kihyun sees traces of Changkyun immediately. A sweater draped over the back of Hoseok’s desk chair that’s far too small for him. An extra pair of slippers set by the door. A pile of goldfish snack pack bags atop the trash can.

“I need to shower,” Kihyun says.

“Want me to wash your hair?”

Something inside Kihyun snaps, and suddenly he’s sobbing. Hoseok helps him into the bathroom, turns the shower all the way hot. Helps Kihyun undress because Kihyun is about as steady on his feet as something newly born. Something with hollow bones.

His chin won’t stop quivering like a child’s.

Hoseok steps into the shower with him and sets Kihyun under the spray. “You want to talk?”

Kihyun just shakes his head. “Can we go home? We have a break soon. Can we go home?”

Hoseok rubs tea tree shampoo into Kihyun’s scalp, and it’s minty and stings like Changkyun under his nose. “Sure. Then you’ll talk to me?”

Kihyun doesn’t reply. He lets Hoseok dunk his head under the water to wash away the shampoo suds. Hoseok lifts Kihyun’s arms, scrubs his armpits until Kihyun is shaking with laughter. They swat water at one another. Hoseok almost slips on the wet tile. Kihyun loves Hoseok about as much as he thinks it’s possible to love someone.

 

They take the train home five days later.

Hoseok’s mom is in Italy with her sister, so his house is empty. They camp out there because this trip isn’t about seeing anyone else as much as finding themselves back in that safe space together.

Hoseok swipes some dust off the old rusty lawn chair he used to sit on in the shed. “It’s been a while.”

“Smells worse. I wonder if one day we’ll find out we’ve been infected with some poison because of that weird bucket,” Kihyun points out, walking around and tracing lines in all the dust.

“You wanna order shitty pizza?”

There’s nothing else Kihyun wants in the whole world. Well.

Nothing else he’ll let himself think about.

The delivery guy wanders around with his cell phone until they direct him through Hoseok’s back gate and out to the shed. He looks terrified, but they tip him a whole fiver.

“Our childhood was kinda shit, huh?” Hoseok asks, chomping into half his folded up slice of pepperoni in one bite. “When you think about it.”

“I try not to, but yeah.” Before he can think better of it, he adds, “Changkyun told me about how he grew up on a bunch of army bases, though, and it made me grateful at least we always had this place.”

Hoseok stops chewing. “Changkyun said that?”

Crust in his mouth, Kihyun mutters, “I mean.” He swallows thickly. “He mentioned it once.”

“Huh.”

“Why? What’s ‘huh’?”

“Changkyun and I never talked about that kinda stuff. Mostly just gossiped about kids we know from class. What online RPG games we like.”

Kihyun drops his next slice back into the box, stomach turning suddenly. “You guys have chemistry though.”

“We aren’t fucking anymore,” Hoseok says, wiping his greasy palms onto the thighs of his jeans. “You know that, right?”

“Well, you haven’t in a couple days but--”

“No, Ki. We decided not to. I have a date with someone else next week.”

Kihyun’s jaw and fists clench up at once. “What do you....?”

“I like Hyungwon. You know. That kid in my figure drawing class? I mentioned him a couple times. Changkyun actually gave me some advice. He said to trap him in the bathroom with me. Give him no where to go so I can get the words out.”

Kihyun’s pizza turns to sludge in his stomach. His breath shortens. Sharpens.

“He actually seemed pretty upset last I talked to him,” Hoseok continues. “He said you were ignoring him. Now are you going to tell me what that’s about, Kihyun?”

“I fucked up,” Kihyun says. “Hoseok, I really fucked up.”

“Why do you think you fucked up?” Hoseok drops a hand to the crown of Kihyun’s head where he sits on the floor. “Maybe because you always push away people you love when you think you’re going to hurt them?”

“Stop using our infinite history against me,” Kihyun whines, pawing at his eyes with his sleeves. He’s tired of crying. “Yeah, I know I do that. I’m a scorpio. It’s what we do,” Kihyun says, snot dripping, as he makes a little imaginary rainbow in the air between his hands. “We fucked at the Cockpit last week.”

“And then you shut him out. Why?”

Kihyun blinks up at Hoseok. “Because he was yours!”

Hoseok’s face scrunches up. “Mine?” He barks a laugh. “Kihyun. Changkyun was never _mine_.”

“He called himself your cocksleeve at breakfast,” Kihyun whimpers.

“And that made you think we were...romantic?” Hoseok laughs again, squatting down in front of Kihyun and wiping at his tears with greasy pizza fingers. Kihyun allows it.

“He seemed so perfect for you. You were always smiling together.”

“We’re friends. He’s a good guy. We had good sex. But that’s it. He’s too...subby for me. You know I like to switch. We tried to get him to top once, and he started crying. It was cute. But also sad.”

Kihyun bites his tongue to try to get himself to stop sobbing. Stop hiccuping these throaty frog-like sobs.

“Listen, Kihyun. I know I’m all you’ve ever had. But you don’t have to give everything of yours to me.”

“I don’t--”

Hoseok starts counting on his fingers. “Your Christmas presents when my mom stopped giving them. Your homework when I stopped trying. Your doctor-prescribed sleep meds when I was having those nightmares after my dad...You always gave me your things, thinking I deserved them more than you. I don’t. I don’t know what you think this friendship is, Kihyun, but I’m not the good one.”

“Of course you are. Of course you’re the good one.”

“You don’t have to give Changkyun to me.”

“I wasn’t--”

“He called me crying, Ki. He said he was worried he took advantage of you or something. Said you looked like you’d been spooked right after you guys slept together. He doesn’t seem like it, but he’s a sensitive kid.”

“He cried?”

Hoseok sighs and grips Kihyun by the shoulders. “That happiness that you think I always deserve: I want that for you, too. Do you want him, Kihyun?”

Kihyun grabs his own knees and squeezes tight to keep himself grounded. “Fuck. Yes. I want him to much, Hoseok. I’ve never wanted anything like I want him.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing here? We don’t owe this place anything. Find a new place. Find something new that makes you feel safe.”

Kihyun collapses forward into Hoseok’s chest. “I’ve always just wanted us to be happy.”

“I know, Ki. You’ve worked so hard. Now let yourself have something.”

 

They stayed the rest of the weekend. Watched old home videos.

They finally kicked over that weird bucket. It was gasoline. Old gasoline.

They burned it down. Called the cops right after.

Part of the pear tree went too. But it was fine.

 

Back on campus it’s really started getting cold. Kihyun can see his breath as he crosses campus, tucking his chin and lips more into the wool of his scarf.

Changkyun is where Jooheon said he’d seen him. In the cafe in the center of campus, alone at one of the round tables, surrounded by muffin crumbs and an empty five hour energy shot.

“Hi,” Kihyun says, walking right up to the table.

Changkyun looks up from his text book, and his eyebrows pull together. “Hey.” His gaze shifts down. “Leather jacket,” he observes.

Kihyun runs his hands down the sides of his knew jacket. It’s soft, still smells new. There are thick lapels with shiny buttons at the center. “Vegan leather. I’m not a monster.”

Changkyun’s lips twitch. Then he smiles. “A conscientious Daddy.”

Kihyun smiles back. “You hungry?” He waves at the muffin crumbs. “I was gonna make something with actual nutritional value.”

“Like a date?”

Kihyun draws in a deep, shuddery breath and nods. “Yeah. Like a date.”

 

They eat veggie stir fry at the kitchen table together while Hoseok is on his date at Hyungwon’s. It’s not the early morning, and the sunset makes Changkyun’s skin look like a new flame. His eyes reflect the light like something trapped in amber.

“So the code,” Kihyun says.

Changkyun drops his chopsticks into the bowl and excitedly raises his hands to the ceiling. “The code! You asshole! You never let me finish! Breaking the code! A plotless, noiseless, chaos of images and colors!”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s a _good_ thing. It’s like we have all these expectations. You hit play and you wait to be told a story. But things don’t always go like that, right? Sometimes you start at the middle. Sometimes you start at the end. Sometimes you start...you start in the middle of someone _else’s_ story.”

Kihyun chews slowly and feels the pink orange yellow of the sky outside as it slowly moves across his kitchen floor. “So, what’s the big deal?”

“There isn’t one. Sometimes you just watch. Sometimes you just let yourself go.”

 

Changkyun puts on some Frank Ocean song as he does the dishes. Kihyun watches him snap the pink rubber gloves up his forearms. Watches as he over-soaps the sponge and gets water all over his fake marble counter. He adds it to the reel of scenes of Changkyun he has in his mind. There’s no plot. Nothing tying them together, other than Kihyun treasures them.

 

Another Frank Ocean song comes on, and Kihyun bends Changkyun over the kitchen table like he’s always wanted. Skinny jeans down around his ankles. He licks at Changkyun’s bare skin until he’s writhing and crying, and Changkyun says, _Fuck, yes, Daddy_ , and Kihyun doesn’t laugh.

Changkyun gets to come before the table gives a weak groan and collapses beneath them. Changkyun bangs his chin against the wood, and Kihyun is still buried in his ass when they both hit the ground.

Changkyun laughs first. He clutches at his chin, crying a little like a baby, but somehow still hard. Kihyun is somehow still hard too.

Changkyun shoves away from the pieces of collapsed table. “Should’ve known IKEA could never provide me my fantasy in whole,” Changkyun says, rolling onto his back on the kitchen floor and hitching his knees to his chest. “C’mere. I’m not done with you.”

Kihyun fucks him until the only light coming through the blinds is from the porchlight in the early evening sky. Changkyun claws at his back and begs, and it’s Kihyun’s name now that drips from Changkyun’s lips as Kihyun’s hips snap against the pale skin of his ass.

Changkyun drops his arms above his head on the floor and arches, and Kihyun’s never felt anything like this before. Like setting himself on fire and starting all over again. Like living in a moment where there are only good things to feel.

There’s a puddle under the sink where Changkyun splashed the dish water. There’s a weird chunk of dust by the base of the refrigerator. A loose screw falls out of one of the legs of the fallen IKEA table.

Changkyun clings to Kihyun and ruts his hips up until Kihyun pulls out to release over Changkyun’s soft tan stomach. Changkyun rubs it into his skin and giggles. Kihyun bends down and kisses him.

“You want this with me?”

Kihyun touches their foreheads together and feels Changkyun’s breath against his lips. “I want this with you.”

Changkyun smacks him on the shoulder. “Good. Asshole.”

“Were you really picking up a goldfish outside my door at 2am that one time?”

Changkyun lifts up to kiss Kihyun’s nose. “Sort of. But also I listened to you masturbate.”

“You’re a gremlin.”

“You said my name.”

“I--did?”

“You like me.”

“I like you.”

“Is this going to be weird...you having ridden my best friend’s dick?”

“Only if you make it weird. Do you want me to praise your dick in his presence? Will that make you feel better?”

 

At breakfast, Hyungwon, Hoseok, Changkyun, and Kihyun sit on the floor in the living room eating eggs off paper plates.

Hyungwon seems good. He has this sleepy expression on his face all the time, and he talks like his tongue is made of cotton balls, but he looks at Hoseok like Kihyun has always wanted someone to look at Hoseok.

“Hoseok, remember when I said your dick is like the Magic Kingdom?”

The room falls silent.

Changkyun stabs a forkful of eggs and nods in Kihyun’s direction. “Wizarding World of Harry Potter, this dick.”

Hoseok laughs.

Kihyun chokes on his eggs.

Hyungwon finds it funny, but Kihyun isn’t sure why.

Changkyun reaches over and squeezes Kihyun’s thigh. “Good?”

Kihyun smiles. “Yeah. It’s good.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @likesatellitez c:


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